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Upworthy – My kind of lefties

I spend a lot of time bashing the left here, and wherever else. Even in the classroom I have a more academic, objective approach to critiquing the mainstream left. With that said, most of my harshest criticisms of the mainstream left (intolerance, suppressive of religious freedom, inconsistent on free speech, race-bating, etc.) are simply inapplicable to this group called “Upworthy”. I am connected to them through facebook, and they have their own website (www.upworthy.com ).

They usually upload short videos, emails, or social media posts, and comment on them. Their perspective is best described as liberal, left of center, etc. They focus heavily on gay’s rights (or should I go with the more pc “LGBT”?). The last few videos I’ve read have impressed me particularly and convinced me that these lefties are alright. One was of a lesbian, I think comedian, telling a story of when she was confronted by a little girl with the question “are you a boy or a girl?” She responded on that little girl’s level, with reason and civility. I then read a facebook post by a Christian lady who explained how she as a Christian can celebrate all love…you get the idea. Your typical militant lefty would use that as an opportunity to agitate with comments like, “but yer a Christian, and yer Bible says gays are supposed to be stoned to death. So you have to believe that or yer a hypocrite!” Upworthy, on the other hand, was happy to listen to this Christian’s perspective with an open mind, free of judgment.

The last one I saw really won me over. ABC has a series apparently called “What would you do?”, where they have actors engage in social experiments. In this segment, there was an Islamic deli employee, and an Islamaphobic customer. The customer was making horrible slurs and accusing the deli employee of being a terrorist. Multiple regular customers (the test subjects) stood up for the deli worker. Thank you Upworthy for having the courage and moral consistency to stand up for Muslims in this country! I sadly see many on the left selling out their principles to fit in with the Faux News crowd, with comments like, “Muslims oppress women”, and “Well I admit that Muslims are much worse than other religious groups…at least Christians don’t blow up buildings.” Bill Mayer, one of the most disgusting individuals in mainstream media, has gone this route, and he has the audacity to call himself “libertarian”! Fortunately, Upworthy is better than that. In America today, Muslims have become the group for whom it is “OK” to be bigoted against. Anyone can stand up for gay’s rights – that’s cool now. But to stand up for Muslims in America, that takes courage. Just as it took courage to stand up for gays in say, the 1950s, or women’s voting rights in the 19th century.

Even though I’m singing their praises right now, I certainly don’t agree with them all the time, and that’s fine. They are more PC than I would like, but hey, I did state that they’re left of center didn’t I? What’s important is having a rational dialogue on these issues between those of us who are past the paradigm (no longer defined so easily by “left” or “right”). I wish there were more left of center groups that don’t mirror the pseudo-liberal bigotry from their ministry of truth headquarters (AKA MSNBC). Well, this is one I can recommend. Check them out!